Computing systems and associated networks have revolutionized the way human beings work, play, and communicate. Nearly every aspect of our lives is affected in some way by computing systems. The proliferation of networks has allowed computing systems to share data and communicate, vastly increasing information access. For this reason, the present age is often referred to as the “information age”.
Databases allow some order to be imposed upon the vast world of information that is available. Rather than manually scan through all of the available data until the data of interest is found, queries may be issued to the database, allowing for retrieval of only the results of the query. To allow queries to be efficiently processed over one or more database entities (such as tables, views, and so forth) of one or more databases, the database entities are often indexed over one or more columns. The index essentially tells where data having parameters of particular values can be found. However, there are often a large variety of parameters represented within a database entities and/or a large number of possible database entities. Accordingly, indexing against all columns and values of all database entities becomes an infeasible task.
In order to improve performance of a database, databases are often “tuned”. Tuning a database involves adjusting various configurations and structures of the database so that the database responds more efficiently to the queries that tend to be submitted to the database. One aspect of such tuning involves creating indexes on particular columns on particular database entities.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.